How to Stop Procrastinating
Page 4
In this conversation with Dinsmore, Steve talked about how Buffett encouraged him to write down a list of 25 things he wanted to do over the next few years. After completing this list, Buffett told him to review this list and circle his top five priorities. These goals would be more important than anything else in Steve’s life.
Next, Buffett encouraged Steve to create an action plan for these five activities. Buffett instructed him to write them down as actionable goals and get started on them immediately.
Toward the end of this conversation, Buffett asked a simple question: “But what about these other 20 things on your list that you didn’t circle? What is your plan for completing those?”
Steve’s reply was probably what most of us would say: “Well, the top five are my primary focus, but the other twenty come in at a close second. They are still important, so I’ll work on those intermittently as I see fit as I’m getting through my top five. They are not as urgent, but I still plan to give them dedicated effort.”
Buffett’s reply was surprising: “No. You’ve got it wrong, Steve. Everything you didn’t circle just became your ‘avoid at all costs’ list. No matter what, these things get no attention from you until you’ve succeeded with your top five.”
Great advice, right?
Well, I can tell you that the 25–5 Rule really works when you apply it in the real world. In fact, I’ve been following it for over a year and it’s had an amazing effect on my life—specifically when it comes to preventing procrastination.
After making the commitment to focus only on five things at a time, I’ve had more business success and personal happiness than I did when my life was filled with dozens of weekly projects, obligations, appointments, and piles of “someday” tasks.
As an example, my current five focuses (in order of priority) are:
being present with friends and family;
completing an IRONMAN race;
writing and marketing my books;
increasing web traffic to my blog, DevelopGoodHabits.com, and converting these visitors into email subscribers;
fixing and updating sections of my home.
What’s powerful about the five-project focus is it’s easy to make decisions about my daily tasks. Each day, I review the items on my Todoist app and any new requests for my time. If the activity doesn’t match one of these five goals, then I immediately say no (which is a concept that we’ll talk more about in Step #4).
Now, it’s not written in stone that you concentrate only on five projects. You could have a few more or a few less. The important thing is to proactively think about your time, commitments, and where you spend the most time. If every one of your actions is directly aligned with a goal, then you’ll feel excited to do it, which is the ultimate procrastination killer.
So how do you identify these five projects?
Well, the first step is to examine your core values. If you match your internal beliefs to your current obligations, then it’s not hard to exclusively focus on the activities that make you happy. So, let’s talk about that next.
How to Identify Your Core Values
Your core values directly relate to your belief system. These values often guide your behavior and state of mind to create your own personal set of rules. By honoring these values, you will reduce your stress when it comes to the tasks that you often procrastinate on.
Most people live a life that’s filled with more work than they can possibly get done. Add the demands of exercise, family, a social life, religious services and worship, hobbies, and civic duties and it becomes impossible to do everything.
For me, I know that my most important value is spending time with my wife, son, extended family, and friends. To put it simply, my focus of being present with the people in my life is the top core value on which I base every other decision. If an activity directly conflicts with this rule (and can’t be rescheduled), then I will refuse to do it.
Unfortunately, most people aren’t truly aware of their own core values. Rather than thinking about what is important to us, we tend to focus on the values of our culture, society, and what the media tells us is important.
While it may be simple to speculate what your values should be, knowing and accepting your core values takes a lot of thought and effort. Here are seven actions that will help you identify your core values.
Action #1: Get In the Right State of Mind
Take time to empty your mind of any outside influences. Perhaps you were recently with friends who made it clear what their values were, or maybe it is Sunday and you have just left a church event.
The point here is our decisions are often skewed by the values that other people want us to believe. So, to identify your core values, try to erase all the programming in your mind that comes from other people and start with a fresh outlook on what you want.
Action #2: Reflect On the Times in Your Life When You Were the Happiest
Consider times from both your professional and your personal life to make sure you have balanced thoughts.
When you think about being happy in the past, what were you doing? Were you with anybody in particular? Were there any other factors that were contributing to your state of happiness?
Picture in your mind those moments when you truly felt fulfilled—those are the values that you should build on.
Action #3: Think of a Time When You Were Proud of Yourself
Again, think about your personal and your professional life.
Has there been a point in your life where you have felt especially proud or confident in yourself? What caused that to happen? Was it a great personal accomplishment or maybe something that allowed you to share your pride with other people? Who was involved?
Action #4: Identify What Has Made You Feel Fulfilled or Satisfied in the Past
Think about the voids that you have had in your life and how they have been filled.
When you have had your needs met, what about that particular experience added meaning to your life? Who was involved and how much outside involvement did they have to have? Were there other contributing factors? How and why did the experience give your life meaning?
Action #5: Determine Your Core Values Based on Your Past Experiences of Happiness, Pride, and Satisfaction
Think back on actions 2–4 and consider why each experience was positive and memorable. Did they all have a common factor? Is there something that is noticeably missing from all these experiences?
Action #6: Align These Experiences with Value Words
Your core values work to guide you and determine your behavior. In order to continue growing, you must identify your values on a regular basis and then work to make any necessary changes to your life so your actions and behavior are in line with your values.
Being true to your values helps to cultivate happiness, fulfillment, and success, because your beliefs come into line with your actions. You can reference my friend Barrie Davenport’s list of value words to help get you started with finding the words that best describe what’s important to you.
Some of these values include:
accomplishment;
control;
dependability;
camaraderie;
commitment;
enjoyment;
gratitude;
appreciation;
inspiration;
consistency;
belongingness;
philanthropy;
hopefulness;
fidelity;
discipline; and
creativity.
Action #7: Prioritize Your Important Values
This is an important step, yet it’s perhaps the most difficult step in the process. In order to pick out your top values, visualize a situation where you would have to choose between two values. For example, if yo
u compare your core values of philanthropy and belongingness, ask this question: What if you had to decide whether to move to a foreign country to do valuable aid work or remain in your hometown and volunteer and do local charity work? Go through your list of values with this in mind to home in on your core values.
Repeat this process until you’ve identified the values that directly relate to the potential projects. Once you have these in mind, you’ll make more effective decisions about the five core projects that you’ll select.
How to Select Your Five Core Projects
It’s my hope that the biggest lesson you’ll get from this book is accepting the fact that you have only a limited amount of time each week. Would you rather spend your time stressing over dozens of different obligations or would you like to focus on a handful of core activities that truly enrich your life?
Hopefully you picked the first option!
If so, then I recommend another exercise that takes three steps to complete.
First, write down (at least) 25 projects or activities that you might to focus on. How you define projects is up to you. But generally speaking, I consider a project to be anything that requires at least an hour or two of my time each week. This can include:
coaching your kid’s soccer team;
starting a side business;
working out;
learning a new skill;
going to school;
tackling work-related projects;
planning a trip;
buying a new house; and
dating and/or being in a relationship.
Now, I’ll admit that it might be weird to label some of these actions as projects—especially the part about dating and relationships.
Not very romantic, right?
But look at this way: if your schedule is filled with too many tasks and projects, then I guarantee you’re probably not being present in your relationships. In my opinion, if you want to build something that lasts, then it needs to be a priority.
To get started on this first step, I recommend writing down every possible goal and outcome you’d like to focus on in the next year. Don’t be afraid to jot down anything that pops into your mind, because you might discover something that truly matters to you.
Second, take 30–60 minutes to examine this list and narrow down your focus to five projects. One way to do this is to match each item to the core values that came up in the previous exercise. Ask yourself, “Which option do I feel most excited to focus on for the next few months?” Also be sure to account for the areas of your life where there would be a serious consequence if you ignored it (like your job).
Ultimately, what you choose should be a good balance of your personal obligations with one or two projects that make you feel excited.
Third, commit to focusing only on these five items for the next few months. This means that you’ll have to purposefully procrastinate on many projects that sound interesting but that you don’t have time for. Yes, this will require a bit of willpower (and frequently saying no), but you’ll discover that when you singularly focus on a handful of activities, it’s easier to get things done and avoid the trap of procrastination.
Now, it’s not enough to focus on five projects at a time. If you don’t know what outcomes you’d like to accomplish, then you’ll still end up procrastinating. That’s why I recommend creating S.M.A.R.T. goals, which we’ll talk about in the next step.
Exercise #3: Focus on Five Core Projects
One of the simplest ways to overcome procrastination is to narrow your attention by focusing on a handful of projects. The method that I recommend is the 25–5 Rule. With this strategy, you’ll list 25 projects or areas of your life that sound compelling, identify five that you want to focus on, and make a commitment to completely ignore everything else.
To figure out where to direct your attention, I suggest completing a seven-step exercise to identify the values in your life:
Get in the right state of mind by challenging every belief that comes from an outside source. If you feel that a thought has been influenced by someone else (parents, friends, religious institutions, media, and so on), then take a few minutes to reexamine your thoughts to see if they are something that you truly believe in.
Reflect on the times in your life when you were the happiest. Ask yourself, “What was I doing? Who was I with? Why did I feel happy?”
Think of the times when you were proud of yourself. What did you accomplish? How did that achievement make you feel? What was it about this activity that made you feel fulfilled?
Identify what has made you feel fulfilled or satisfied in the past. How and why did the experience give your life meaning?
Determine your core values based on your past experiences of happiness, pride, and satisfaction. Review the previous steps and identify the common elements of these peak moments.
Align these experiences with value words like accomplishment, enjoyment, philanthropy, and creativity.
Prioritize these values in order of importance.
After you’ve identified your values, complete another 30- to 60-minute exercise where you identify your five core projects:
Write down (at least) 25 projects or activities you could focus on.
Take 30 minutes to examine this list and narrow down your focus to only five projects.
Commit to focus only on these five items for the next few months.
Step #3: Set Quarterly S.m.a.r.t. Goals
As we just discussed, a simple way to prevent procrastination is to focus only on activities that directly align with a handful of goals. This works because whenever you feel that urge to put off a task, you can remind yourself of how your inaction negatively affects an outcome that you desire in the immediate future.
When it comes to goal setting, my suggestion is to set S.M.A.R.T. goals for every quarter (i.e., three months) instead of the yearlong goals that most people create.
To begin, let’s start with a simple definition of S.M.A.R.T. goals.
George Doran first used the S.M.A.R.T. acronym in the November 1981 issue of the Management Review. It stands for:
Specific;
Measurable;
Attainable;
Relevant; and
Time-bound.
Specific
Specific goals answer your six “W” questions: “Who?”, “What?”, “Where?”, “When?”, “Which?”, and “Why?”
When you can identify each element, you’ll know which tools (and actions) are required to reach a goal:
Who is involved?
What do you want to accomplish?
Where will you complete the goal?
When do you want to do it?
Which requirements and constraints might get in your way?
Why are you doing it?
Specificity is important because when you reach these milestones (date, location, and objective), you’ll know for certain you have achieved your goal.
Measurable
Measurable goals are defined with precise times, amounts, or other units—essentially anything that measures progress toward a goal.
Creating measurable goals makes it easy to determine if you have progressed from point A to point B. Measurable goals also help you figure out when you’re headed in the right direction and when you’re not. Generally, a measurable goal statement answers questions starting with how, such as “How much?”, “How many?”, and “How fast?”
Attainable
Attainable goals stretch the limits of what you think is possible. While they’re not impossible to complete, they’re often challenging and full of obstacles. The key to creating an attainable goal is to look at your current life and set an objective that seems slightly beyond your reach. That way, even if you fail, you still accomplish somet
hing of significance.
Relevant
Relevant goals focus on what you truly desire. They are the exact opposite of inconsistent or scattered goals. They are in harmony with everything that is important in your life, from success in your career to happiness with the people you love.
Time-Bound
Time-bound goals have specific deadlines. You are expected to achieve your desired outcome before a target date. Time-bound goals are challenging and grounding. You can set your target date for today, or you can set it for a few months, a few weeks, or a few years from now. The key to creating a time-bound goal is to set a deadline you’ll meet by working backward and developing habits (more on this later).
Side note: Okay, here’s where it might get confusing. Sometimes the “three-month rule” doesn’t apply for every situation. Occasionally you’ll have a major goal that demands your attention, but doesn’t neatly fit into a quarterly block of time.
For instance, one of my current goals is to complete an IRONMAN race, which is five months away as I’m writing this. Training for this race is still a critical part of my day, but I won’t achieve the outcome until two months after the deadline of this quarter.
The point here is like everything else in this book, the three-month rule isn’t written in stone. Use it as a general guideline—not as an absolute must.
Examples of S.M.A.R.T. Goals
A S.M.A.R.T. goal is clear and well-defined. There is no doubt about the result you want to achieve. At its deadline, you’ll know if you have or haven’t achieved a particular goal.
As an example, here are S.M.A.R.T. goals related to seven core values that many people have:
Career: “I will acquire five new projects for my web design consultancy through referrals, networking, and social media marketing campaigns within three months.”